Mental health is one of the most challenging areas of health care. Plagued with controversy, conventional medicine struggles to understand the underlying causes of mental illness. Although acute treatments and management of mental health conditions are available and often critical in some cases, longer term solutions are lacking. Many rely on antidepressant medication to support their mood, but it is becoming more and more clear that deficiencies in neurotransmitters, like serotonin, are not the true cause of anxiety or depression. In fact, when it comes to anxiety, one consideration shown in research is excessive serotonin. And in the end, the common medications for chronic anxiety and depression often do not appear to work a lot better than placebo in the majority of cases.
Psychoneuroimmunology is a field of study that explains mental health conditions as a symptom of other inflammatory issues in the body. Essentially, a mental health illness is an emotional response to physical illness. This new area of medicine is gaining a lot of traction and success can be measured using objective testing while people start to feel better.
The answer to psychoneuroimmunology is functional medicine. Assessment and treatment of health issues in the individual, more often than not, resolves the physical and mental health conditions concurrently. Often treatments can be as simple as diet changes, addressing digestive issues, which result in dramatic improvements in mood.
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